NO MAINPAGE. I will most likely delete this later, it's way personal. But it's been rattling around in my brain, and I needed to get it out.

I am having a textbook mid-life crisis right now. I turn the big 4-0 next week. I'm tired of my corporate job, feel like I should've done something more creative with my life, I'm not super enthusiastic about my marriage right now, I hate my body, I hate the way my body looks, I hate the way my body feels (OLD AND BROKE DOWN), I never go out or have fun or hang with friends. I have some work friends, but it's not like we hang out every day. I feel like I've had this picture in my head of who I am for my whole life, and when I stop and actually look at who I actually am, my life does not reflect who I am in my head at all. In my head, I am a spontaneous, fun, witty, quick, funny bitch that takes no shit and is creative as fuck. In my life, in actuality, I am a fat married middle manager working mom who has no friends to do fun shit with, hardly ever has sex or fun with her husband, and hates her messy house but not enough to actually clean it. I have to toe the company line all day at work, and be responsible for 18 people and deal with their personalities and issues and somehow motivate them to work as hard as possible without being a total asshole about it. And over half of them are telecommuters. UGH. You know what I do for fun? Watch TV, surf GT, and smoke weed. Usually all at the same time. I long for community and connectedness and for my intelligence and creativity to be recognized and valued, but I am in the absolute wrong career for it. But changing my career seems 100% not doable in my mind. I used to write things, and post them on the internet, ages ago. I think I actually hosted my website on Angelfire. LONG ASS TIME AGO. I am afraid of any sort of internet notoriety these days, because of trolls and my corporate job, because managers cast a long shadow and I am example to my team and all that shit. I am terrified of any sort of creative endeavor coming back to bite me in the ass IRL. My marriage is at a crossroads, sort of. My husband and I have gone through a really really bad patch lately. Like talking about divorce bad. And right now, things aren't horrible. But we're still not having sex unless I insist, and I feel like we are two totally different people than when we first married. He reads atheist/Christian debate pages for fun. FOR FUN. I can't imagine a WORSE way to have fun on the internet. He admitted during the summer he wasn't attracted to me anymore. But yet he immediately backtracked and acts like he will eventually get it back, but doesn't seem to make any effort to make any romance or stuff like that. He's also in a very hard graduate program right now, just started semester 4 out of 6 semesters. So he is halfway done. And I have financially supported us through all of his schooling. So obviously, that is a large part of not wanting to rock my career boat. I am paying for our house and food and existence. We have health insurance because of my job. I may not get out with friends much, but my family is here and my job is here, and my husband is suddenly thinking about wanting to move after he graduates to get a job somewhere else and "Start over." And I used to want to get out of the south, but now not so much. Oh, and my cat I've had for 16 years and was my favorite cat ever had to be put down a few weeks ago. And husband doesn't want to get any more pets because they're messy and ruin shit. But the cat shaped hole in my heart wants to find the nearest shelter and get a new cat immediately. Because of all the trouble we had earlier in the year, I've kinda closed myself off from my husband. I'm not seeking much emotional support from him at all, because he's not attracted to me. Because he's stressed out from school and has anxiety issues and panic attacks that have developed over the last 2 years. Because I'm scared that I will push and push and fight and fight for our relationship and it still won't work.

I am now a person who always puts everyone else's needs before my own. My work, my child, my husband's academic career, everything is more important than my needs. I have to fight with myself in order to convince myself to ask for what I need. Right now, my life is filling like 10% of my needs. And I can't seem how to figure out how to get more of them met without flipping all the tables. And I don't want to have THAT kind of midlife crisis. I don't want to burn the house to the ground, and be so selfish that I hurt everyone I'm close to. But it sounds awesome to do just that, and that scares me.

How do I become more of the person in my head in real life? How do I like my body? How do I not hate my floppy belly and my fat upper arms? How do I not resent the boring, safe, suburban life I have ended up living? How do I have something awesome to look forward to every day? The worst part of my day right now is when I wake up in the morning, because I think about all the shit I have to do for everyone else, but not for me. And I know this is all the firstiest of first world problems, I know. I have a roof over my head, and can go to the doctor when I need to, and money to do some fun stuff, and my daughter is going to a good school and thriving, and my husband is getting the education his family would've never supplied for him because no one went to college where he is from. And he is a spectacular father. Why do I hate my life so much?